Tag: physics

Nevis Laboratories, the physics lab where I work, is setting up an outreach program. The goal is to give the general public an idea of the work we do here. I’ve become the “social media coordinator” for the lab. Nevis now has a presence on three social-media sites: Facebook , Twitter , and Instagram .

In my previous post, I mentioned that I was working on a talk about the history of Nevis. I presented that talk yesterday.

I’d been worried about how the talk would be received. I focused more on the history of the Nevis estate and on the construction of the Nevis synchrocyclotron than the research we’ve done in the past 35 years. Anyone who came to the talk expecting to hear their work or name mentioned would be disappointed.

My stomach was doing flip-flops in the two hours just before the talk.

I needn’t have worried. Everyone loved the talk. They were more interested in learning something new than having their egos stroked. I made the talk non-technical, so the family and friends of the physicists at the holiday party had no problems following it.

I recently picked up Playing at the World by Jon Peterson. This book is a history of the game Dungeon & Dragons.

Since many of my readers are Wiccan, I’ll use an analogy that will make sense to them: Playing at the World does for D&D what Ronald Hutton’s Triumph of the Moon did for Wicca. It explores the different elements and influences that resulted in D&D, and follows the chain of influence forward as D&D affected the world around it. [1] [2]

My work e-mail address isn’t working. Please use one of my g-mail addresses (William, then a dot, then Seligman) or the Acorn Garden one (again, with a dot).

The reason why the work e-mail address is down is that power is out at the lab. There was a serious transformer breakdown because a woodchuck crawled inside. Funeral services for Mr. Bucktooth will be scheduled as soon as we can contact Simplicity Memorial.